


The First Few Steps

by orphan_account



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, I Don't Even Know, It gave me ideas, Post-Season/Series 02, They flirted in the finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-08
Updated: 2016-03-08
Packaged: 2018-05-25 12:17:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6194854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rose is stood up by her date. Howard decides this offers a convenient opening for flirtation. It goes better than expected -- if not quite in the way he'd planned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The First Few Steps

Howard doesn’t usually remember people. He likes to save his brain for more important things than storing names and faces. Peg teases him about it, in that disapproving way she has. _You need to be nicer,_ she says, except with words like egotist and narcissist and self-absorbed wanker. As if it’s his fault most people don’t work hard enough to make themselves memorable.

He’s therefore surprised when he recognizes Rose from the SSR, sitting off by herself at a club he likes. He vaguely recalls her presence in his lab during the Whitney Frost debacle, but he probably wouldn’t recognize her now if she hadn’t thrown a pushy tap-dancer into a wall when he’d stopped by the SSR earlier that week. He’d been hovering in the front room, waiting for the bozo to finish making an idiot of himself, when said bozo kicked up a fuss about being rejected. 

One second he’d been threatening Rose. The next, he’d been in a pile on the floor. 

Afterwards, Rose turned to Howard and offered a cheerful grin and showed him back to where Peggy was, talking politely the whole time like she hadn’t just kicked a grown man’s ass. 

Of course, he’d asked Peggy about her – he’d forgotten her name, if he'd bothered to learn it in the first place – and Peggy had rolled her eyes and repeated _Rose_ about five times, because she knew he’d never remember otherwise. She’d then added a stern, “Don’t try anything with her, Howard,” and wrapped up the topic with an icy glare that left little room for argument. 

Since Peggy warned him away from Rose, Howard assumes she likes her, and if Peggy likes her, she’s probably fairly interesting.

Someone else apparently missed that memo. She’s alone tonight. Not the kind of alone introverted people enjoy, like Jarvis when he goes off to polish silverware because he likes _thinking time_ , but alone in a “some asshole stood her up” way. Howard catches people glancing at her with condescending, _poor thing_ expressions, so he assumes she’s been there a while.

He loosens his tie and heads over to the bar. “A vodka martini, and-” He glances back at Rose’s table to see what she’s drinking, and adds, “Some kind of daiquiri.”

Once he has the drinks, he checks to make sure Rose’s date hasn’t shown up.

Nope. She’s still by herself.

He ambles over to her booth.

“Sorry, sweetheart,” he says, loudly enough that anyone nearby can hear. He slides into the seat across from her, and she blinks several times fast, eyes fixing on him in surprise. He offers his most charming grin. “My last meeting took longer than expected.”  

She shakes her head, forehead creased. “What are you doing here?”

“Meeting you for our date. Act happy to see me.”

Rose narrows her eyes as this sinks in, significantly less swoony about his interference than she should be. “This isn’t necessary.”

“Neither are my three mansions, seven houses, and nineteen Cadillacs, but I still bought ‘em.” 

“I don’t need your pity,” she insists, all pride and bluster.

Oh, for heaven’s sake.

“I pity stray kittens and war orphans. I bought you a drink because I’m interested.”  

The glare gets worse. “Then why are you pretending to be the date that stood me up?”

“Seemed like a good ice-breaker.”

She still looks unconvinced, and Howard tries to make his expression less sleazy and more friendly. He probably only halfway succeeds, but her horrible _I don’t trust your intentions, go away_ face softens into something more like, _what in the hell am I supposed to do with you?_

He’s used to that one, and has an abundance of experience in letting it roll off his shoulders.  

“Can I stay?” he presses. “At this point, _I’d_ look bad if you made me leave, so…”

She has to think about it. Like he's not Howard Stark. Like he isn't trying to be nice for once in his life. He'd been joking when he said it'd look bad if she gave him the boot, but now he worries. 

“I suppose it couldn’t hurt,” she finally says. 

_Oh, thank god._

He takes a drink of his martini and goes for nonchalance. “Is this a date, then?”  

Rose gives him one of those _woman looks_ he hates so much, where her face does a thing, and her lips twist a little, and she could be feeling any of about twelve different emotions and it’s like walking through a minefield, trying to figure out the right one.

“I don’t know. Is it?”

Yeah, minefield. Definitely. Step here, and Peggy will castrate him. A misstep there, and he’ll be the next man Rose throws into a wall.

Not that being thrown into a wall by a woman doesn’t have potential. But it wasn’t fun, the way she did it to the tap-dancer.

He’s pretty sure a screw up on his part would lead to the _not_ -fun way.

“I bought you a drink,” Howard says carefully. “And we’re sitting together. At a club.”

She waits for more.

_Really._

“C’mon,” he says. “Give me something. You liked my flirting before. Why’re you looking at me like I’ve grown a second head now?”

“This isn’t just flirting.”  

“Then what is it? Rocket science?” He takes a bigger drink. “Actually, no. I’d have an easier time with rocket science. It’d certainly be less dangerous.”

“How is this dangerous?”   

“Say I misread this situation. I’ll make _you_ angry, and you can probably break my neck with one arm. Peg, and – well, Sousa. Hell, probably Samberley, might also gain up and kill me. How isn't that dangerous? I could die. I don't wanna die. Hence, my attempt to establish a defined set of parameters to reduce the possibility of aforementioned lethal misreading."

Rose studies him for a fairly long time, like she’s trying to figure him out. Which doesn’t sit well. Most people think they have him figured out before they even meet him. This makes interacting with them blessedly simple, because he just has to be who they think he is.

Rose has apparently held back judgment. Except now, she’s actively, obviously trying to take a measure of him, and that’s infinitely too much pressure for a Friday night.

“Still waiting on those parameters,” Howard says, so she’ll stop with the judgey staring.

Rose shakes her head. “I won’t run to Peggy if this goes wrong. You don’t have to worry about that.”     

“That’s a start. But this bit is really important, so be honest. Am I in _physical_ danger?”

She laughs a disturbed sort of laugh. “Goodness, no. It’s horrible that you’d think you might be.”

_Oh, but you haven’t spent a whole evening with me yet._

“I’ll take your word for it,” he says dubiously. “ _However_. Parameters. Still haven’t gotten any.”

“You’re the one who came over here. What had you intended?”

He answers with a leer and a vague enough gesture that he can pretend he means something else if she reacts poorly.  

Her face goes red.

“No,” she says quickly. “I’m sorry.”

Okay. He can handle a no. A no isn't so bad. 

At least she was honest about the not-throwing him. 

“You’re fine. It won’t kill me to be a gentleman for an evening.” She shoots him a disbelieving look, and he puts a hand over his heart. “Your skepticism wounds me.”

“Yes. That smirk you’re wearing gives the impression of deep psychological pain.”

He laughs at that, but he isn’t sure where to go from there. How does a person handle a date that _won’t_ lead to sex, when it’s with a person he’ll inevitably see again, and who’s close with his scary, gun-wielding, not-afraid-to-sock-him-in-the-face best friend?

The first safe topic he can think of is the weather.

Peggy’s been attempting to convince him to carry a firearm. He somewhat regrets that he hasn’t listened, because he deserves a shot in the head for even considering that kind of small talk.

Another beat of silence.

“LA’s pretty sunny, huh?”

He barely refrains from pounding his head against the table.

Rose heaves a sigh. “Have you been working on anything interesting?” she asks, as if he hadn’t spoken.

He can see why Peggy likes her.

“ _Yes_. I’m always working on something interesting. Wrapping up my movie. Doctor Wilkes and I are doing something – well, top-secret, can’t talk about that. Oh, I’m building a new flying car.”

She perks up at that. “Aloysius mentioned you had one.”

The mention of Samberley makes him grimace. “He’s not the ass clown who stood you up, is he?”

“No, no,” Rose said. “That was – a man I met in passing. I have… mixed feelings towards Aloysius.” She dismisses the topic with a flick of her wrist. “You sent your first car into a portal, yes? To stop Whitney Frost?”

“Jarvis sent it in,” Howard says, “but yeah. Lost that one. Hadn’t perfected the design yet anyway. I need to do something different with the wheels. I’ve sketched a few ideas, but-”

He cuts himself off. The easiest way to put a date to sleep is by going on about science. He realized that a long time ago. 

Rose leans forward. “What kind of sketches? Can you show me?” She pauses, self-consciousness flashing briefly across her features. “Unless you think it’d be too complicated.”

Is she... serious? Or asking because she thinks he wants her to ask? She _looks_ interested, and well – if she’s not, she gave him an open invitation to explain. It’s her own fault if she finds his chatter boring.

Howard slides out of his seat, then back into the booth in the space beside her.

“If I can’t explain it simply enough for you to understand, it means I don’t understand it myself,” he says. He grabs a napkin off the table and a pen from his pocket and starts drawing. “See, this is the original design. The one that didn’t work at all. I called it gravitic reversion technology, but that was to make it sound interesting. You can’t actually reverse gravity. Anyway-”

He makes rough sketches of the first two designs, and Rose listens and asks questions – good questions, like she’s really paying attention. But about halfway through, Howard gives himself an idea and grabs another napkin and gets lost in his head. He doesn’t realize he’s been neglecting Rose until he runs out of space and looks up to find something else to write on, and sees her sitting there, eyes fixed on his work.

“Sorry,” he starts.

She hands him another napkin. “Get it out of your system.”

“No, it’s-”

“Explain to me what you’re doing afterwards, and I won’t hold it against you.”

“You’re a goddess,” he blurts, and promptly spends another ten minutes rushing to finish. When he’s done, he goes back and tells Rose about his idea in terms she'll understand, then trips over himself when he realizes he’s made a mistake and it’d never work. He intends to let it go at that, but Rose asks _why_ it won’t work, and whether there are parts of the idea he could use, and they talk through it together, with Howard jotting the occasional note as he bounces ideas off her like he usually does with Jarvis.

He doesn’t realize how much time has passed until Rose puts a hand on his arm to capture his attention. “I’m sorry,” she says, smiling apologetically, “but I should be going.”

Howard realizes with unease that he doesn’t necessarily want her to go. He’s enjoyed himself, strangely enough. She let him talk science. She talked science _with him_. And she’s still smiling, like she had a good time anyway, and doesn’t mind that he hijacked the evening and turned their date into a university lecture.

“Jarvis can give you a ride,” he offers, but Rose waves him off. 

“No, no. I’ll be fine with a cab.”

They linger a moment longer before Howard shakes off his reluctance and drags himself to his feet. He considers taking her hand as he walks her outside, but that feels horribly juvenile, so he settles for doing the mature thing and pretending to accidentally brush arms with her instead.

We should do this again, Howard wants to say once they stop on the sidewalk in front of the club. Never mind that the very idea makes him cringe. Such sentiment is usually a precursor to dreadful things like expectations and relationships and feelings. 

Rose clears her throat. “Thank you for… salvaging what would’ve been a horrible evening.”

He manages a smile at that. “It was my pleasure.”

Still can’t force out the words to ask for a second date.  

Rose turns like she’s going to walk away.  

“Wait.”

She pauses.

Howard rolls back on his heels, hands shoved in his pockets. “Remember when you said you wouldn’t hurt me?”

“Yes…”

“Please don’t hurt me.”

Before she can question that, he kisses her. Rose freezes, just long enough to make him worry, but then she’s returning the kiss, her lips soft against his. It’s been a long time since he’s done this as anything but a lead up to sex, and he enjoys the relative warmth of it. He cups her jaw and rests his other hand on her hip, and she sighs into his mouth in a way that makes him feel like a sixteen-year-old on his first date.

He moves his arms around her and deepens the kiss, pressing his body against hers, teasing her mouth open so he can slip his tongue inside. Desire flares hot in the pit of his stomach, and he lets his hands drift down her back and settles them over the curve of her ass.

It's too much, between the kissing and body contact and the gaping hole where his self-control is supposed to be. The first traces of temptation creep into the back of his mind, and Howard pulls back before he makes an ass of himself by pushing more than he should.

They’re both breathing hard, and Rose’s mouth is frozen open, her eyes wide, like Howard had given her a literal shock.

“Too much?”

“No, no. It was… wow.”

Her chest is heaving in a way that’s absolutely fascinating, and Howard blurts the first thing he can think of to distract himself.  

“Do you like Italian? I know a place you can get real authentic Italian.”

She stares at him. “It’s almost midnight.”

“I mean – some other time. Like, as a separate date.”

More staring, but this time Rose’s expression features a heaping helping of skepticism.

With a sinking feeling, Howard realizes she’s trying to determine whether he’s serious. Which prompts the even more uncomfortable realization that he’s probably made plans like this before, with other women, and not followed through. Not because he consciously chose not to, but because he hadn’t cared enough to remember.

She doesn’t believe him, and she’s right not to believe him.

Howard searches for something to say that’ll make her see he means it this time, but there’s nothing, really. He’s utilized every sweet, sincere turn of phrase he can think of in a variety of distinctly _insincere_ ways, and Rose undoubtedly knows it. Hell, everyone knows it.

Howard releases a slow breath, something like nausea settling hard in his gut.  

“I’m serious,” he says finally. He looks at a point somewhere past Rose’s ear. “I had fun. I’d love a second date. I’ll tell Jarvis as soon as he shows up, and I’ll mention it to Peg when I see her, and they’ll hold me – very accountable. Since I’m too much of a self-absorbed ass to manage on my own.”

There.

That was only extremely painful.

“Okay,” Rose says.

He relaxes somewhat.

“Okay?”

“Don’t make you regret this.”

“Don’t you mean-”

“I know what I said,” she says, but with a trace of a smile in her voice.

He laughs, and kisses her again, softly this time – and for just a moment, he entertains the thought that this doesn't feel so much like the end of a date, as it does the beginning of something else.


End file.
